Precision Physics at the International Linear Collider

Despite the great success of the Standard Model, many key questions in particle physics and cosmology are unanswered today. Together with the Large Hadron Collider LHC, starting in 2007, the International Linear Collider ILC as the next project planned at the high energy frontier, will play a crucial role in tackling many of these most exciting questions. The high precision achievable with experiments at the ILC will be indispensable in order to reach definite conclusions about many features of new physics expected at the TeV scale. This contribution presents prominent physics examples and describes detector challenges and the project status.